In the end, running a blog is one of those things that seems simple in itself, but the gap between just doing it and doing it to its fullest potential is actually huge. There’s just so many moving parts! There’s WordPress itself, writing content, editing, formatting, hosting, SEO, link building, social media, email lists, networking, and on and on and on.

With a business account, you’ll have access to Pinterest Analytics, as well as the ability to create “Rich Pins.” You can also pay Pinterest to promote your pins with a business account, but that’s definitely not necessary. We experimented with about $50 worth of promoted pins before figuring out we could make our pins go viral on our own, without the help of ads.
Affiliate sales comprise a large chunk of revenue for most big-name bloggers. For instance, Pat Flynn made $53K last month from affiliate sales, compared to "just" $9,500 from book sales. In general, look for affiliate products with higher price points; web hosting companies are a great choice if it makes sense in your niche, with payouts of anywhere from $60-$130+ per signup.
One criticism: I bought the print version, and there are a few illustrations there that were obviously done in color for the e-Book version, but they wind up in black-and-white in the print version. Surely it could have been easy enough to change the way these illustrations looked in black and white to optimize it for the print book e.g. using dotted or dashed lines, or more strongly contrasting shades of gray? I felt rather frustrated at that. However, it was the only problem I encountered (it only affects literally a few small things) and it was not a major drawback. I still give the book a full 5 stars, it's still great despite this minor issue.
Take good pictures. Some of the options below don’t require you to actually take the picture and sell the product, but for the ones that do, make sure you take a clear picture that makes your product stand out from the others. If you’re going to be taking a lot of pictures, set up a small “studio-like” area in your home with a backdrop and proper lighting to really make your pictures come across as professional. And of course, you’ll want a good camera too.
25. Products – You can create your own product, such as an ebook or computer software. You would then use your blog as a promotion tool to get people to buy your product. As long as you create a legitimate product with a whole lot of value, you should be able to get some buyers, but like everything else with a blog, you’ll need the traffic to get the sells.
You can also strategically rely on traditional post formats to help you along the way. At the end of the day, as long as your information is interesting, relevant, and sourced reliably, you’re on the right track. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but keep in mind it’s smarter to break the rules on purpose than by mistake. Read and learn from popular blogs in your niche and try out what works best for them.
Thanks, I’m 59 years old and at a point in my life that I believe I’m starting to understand the meaning of life. Though this understanding is still in its infancy I think I’m ready to start asking some questions. Is it plausible to have a Blog that explores is subject matter and do you think it would be interesting to others. I’ve not written anything since high school but on my way home from work I had a Moment of clarity and then this idea thank you for your time.
Amazon is the giant in the industry, but it’s also a good idea to reach out to small companies and even individuals who make products or services that are related to your blog. For example, if you have a popular cooking blog, you might contact small BBQ sauce companies to see if they’d be interested in setting up an affiliate marketing program with you. You earn a portion of the sale through your blog, and they get free marketing.[46]
The reasoning behind this is simple. If your aren’t earning money, you’re not truly “in business.” Your blog is merely a hobby you do in your spare time. On the other hand, how much revenue you need to earn to be considered a success depends on the amount of money you need to survive and the expenses your business has. Basically, as long as you still have money leftover after paying your personal and business bills, you’re golden.
Hi Adeola, With BlueHost there’s not a free option. You can setup a blog for free on WordPress.com or Blogger.com — but you’re limited in how you can monetize. You also end up with a domain name like: beautyblog.wordpress.com instead of beautyblog.com. You can switch to the paid option later down the road — I’m not sure how difficult it is to make the transfer.
As you'll see, my first year of blogging saw only about 9,000 total readers, but I wasn't really taking blogging seriously and I was still learning how to drive traffic. In my second year, you'll see traffic begins to pick up dramatically as I start to figure out who my audience is and which traffic strategies work best for me—that's when I started driving almost as much traffic per month than I'd gotten in my entire first year.
21. Facebook – Facebook swap shops are great for selling things locally. It’s like CraigsList, but a little easier. You simply search for swap shops in your area and ask to join the group. Once you’re in, take a picture of the item, write a quick description with the price and post it. It doesn’t get much easier than that. You can generally expect to get about what you would get at a yard sale, maybe a little more.
If you are blogging about one specific topic then you will definitely want to include that in some way in your blog name. Try not to get hung-up on just one word though. For example, a cooking blog doesn’t necessarily have to have the word “cooking” in it. The words “food”, “recipes”, and “meals” would also let people know that your blog is about cooking.
Don’t simply start a blog about weight loss. Start a blog targeting people trying to lose weight with the keto diet, no equipment workouts or strength training. Don’t start a blog about gardening. Start a blog about urban gardening, growing your own food or growing a specific type of plant. Basically, consider the broad topic you want to start a blog about, and find a niche market within that topic to target.
You also need to do things like select a theme. What will your design look like? Will you use a standard theme that's free or will you splurge on a premium theme? There are literally hundreds of thousands of WordPress themes that can be chosen to hep you with the design and layout of your blog. Two of my favorite options for sourcing premium WordPress themes are Envato's Theme Forest and Template Monster.
Ruth Soukup is a writer, blogger, mom of two, and the successful founder of the blog LivingWellSpendingLess.com. Since launching in 2010, Living Well Spending Less has become one of the most popular personal finance blogs on the net, receiving more than one million visitors per month. She is also the founder of the Elite Blog Academy, as well as the author of the bestselling blogging guide How to Blog for Profit (Without Selling Your Soul), and her next book, Living Well, Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life (Zondervan) will be released December 30th, 2014. For more information about Ruth, please visit LivingWellSpendingLess.com.
Even though you have to pay for your own web hosting out of pocket, going this route allows you much more flexibility in terms of site design and usability. And don’t worry, hosting is really inexpensive, especially if you take advantage of our 42% off coupon code with Hostgator (BTOP42). Depending on your hosting plan, it shouldn’t end up costing you more than a few dollars a month.
Just wanted to check up and say hey. I’m following your lead of side hustle millionaire entrepreneurship. Building a million dollar online business is tough. People have to want to do this because there’s no guarantees. It’s certainly worth the risk because speaking from past experience in corporate America, I was miserable waking up everyday and going to work for someone else that got rich off of my work without me getting benefits. This is why I’m in the side hustle millionaire mindset like you. Thanks for keeping me inspired.
NOTE: I’ll get into this in the section on Helping Other Bloggers, but be sincere in your help. If you only seek out to get something out of someone else, you won’t form a relationship with that person. I’ve liked Stephanie’s blog and content since I first saw it. She has an amazing story of being broke in New York City, and she’s built this amazing personal finance business in just a couple years. I help Stephanie because I like Stephanie, not because I want or expect to get anything out of the relationship.
Search for blogs that cover similar topics. Use a search engine and the search bar on blog hosting sites to find blogs that cover your topic or related topic. Read a few blog posts from the most popular ones, that show up high on the search ranking, have the most comments, or display a readership of 20,000 or more.[7] Get an idea for how much interest and competition there is.
Keep in mind that you’re not just building a blog, you’re going to be building a business and a brand. The more memorable you make your domain name, the more likely you’ll be to succeed with your blog. If it’s catchy and people can remember it, they might just come back to it over and over again as long as the content is great. But it all starts with a domain name.
Don’t get me wrong I have made many mistakes along the way but once I knew what I was doing it became a lot easier and more enjoyable. Many of my friends have emailed me or called me to find out more about “What Jamie Does”, but it can be a little hard to sink in at first as to how you can actually make a real income from running a successful blog(s). Therefore I have decided to create this guide for my friends, family, email subscribers and anyone else who wants to start doing “What Jamie Does”.
25. Products – You can create your own product, such as an ebook or computer software. You would then use your blog as a promotion tool to get people to buy your product. As long as you create a legitimate product with a whole lot of value, you should be able to get some buyers, but like everything else with a blog, you’ll need the traffic to get the sells.
Once you’re logged in you’ll get a popup screen that says, install WordPress or concrete5, just click on the green “Install WordPress” button. Next, it will ask you which domain you’d like to install WordPress on — choose your domain from the drop-down box and click on the green button, “Check Domain.” When the install starts, you’ll get a screen that says, “Ok, we’re setting up WORDPRESS for you!”
Starting a blog that actually makes money involves a great deal of writing. But not just any writing. You need to write keyword-focused content and do it repeatedly. When it comes to writing your content, there are a ton of rules that you should follow if you want it to be effective when it comes to SEO (in fact over 200+ which you can learn about here), but try not to allow that to overwhelm you.
In March 2018, I started my first self-hosted blog and it was super easy, quick, and fun! At first, I was scared because I thought that it would be too hard and that I would struggle for days, weeks, or even months trying to figure everything all out. I was literally reading hundreds of articles about blogging which were all offering contradicting information. The overwhelm was real.
One added benefit is that if someone clicks on a link from your website to Amazon and ends up buying multiple items (not just the item you are promoting), then you would get credit for the entire sale! Imagine you recommend a book on Amazon, your visitor goes to Amazon to buy a book, and while they're there they end up buying a new TV, a Sony PlayStation, and some other things. You get credit for all of the sales. Not only that, but you also earn from any sales you make in the following 15 days from that customer.
Very well thought out and detailed. It’s seems like a great guide – easy to understand and follow , Word Press is a great recommendation. It’s easy to use.I am currently using WordPress for publishing blogs relating to mobile advertising . Another easy way out is, bloggers can also monetize their blogs by joining mobile ad networks & Earn more revenue through their Blogs.

And that’s totally fine (hint: I don't either)! There are some incredible free blog photo and design resources you can use to enhance your posts, even if you’re not very design-minded at all. You can even just use product screenshots throughout your content, depending upon the subject matter—take for example my recent article about the best CRMs for small business.

I’m trying to get going for the minimum cost in the first instance. So, my question; is it possible to have more than one blog (or niche) attached to a single website? I have been advised it will cost around £250 for a basic WordPress site (once you have domain, hosting, theme etc). I have done a lot of work with small businesses as an advisor and specialise in marketing. I’m considering offering online courses and e guides. however, I would also like to blog about my hobbies of walking and motor homing. It’s just where to start!
I’ve been blogging for about 6 months now I just recently posted my 50th blog post. It took awhile to figure out exactly what topic I was passionate enough about, originally I began as a food blogger, however I has since transitioned into a blog that aims to reach millenials who are at different stages including college, jobs, and new parenthood depending on the path they have chosen to take. Blogging helped me to get my freelance writing career off the ground, and I am hoping that soon I will be able to do well enough with my freelance writing that I can finally invest that ~$200 necessary to get my blog on the profit making path.
Lastly, don’t be afraid or too shy to integrate your personality into your brand, and yes, your blog is your brand. Consumers want to buy products from brands they trust, and there are few greater ways to form relationships with them than by sharing your own thoughts and personal struggles in your niche, showing more of yourself, and generally being as authentic and transparent as possible.
SEO – SEO stands for search engine optimization. Basically, you want search engines, like Google, to index and rank your content high in their algorithm, so that when people do an internet search — your content is easily found (preferably on page one). So when you research and write your content you'll want to consider your niche, keywords, questions, and phrases that individuals are searching for and intertwine these into your blog posts. This is an oversimplified definition, but it gives you the gist of what SEO can do your blog. This article talks more about SEO so you can start learning the ropes.

Take the time to build your automated sales funnel. There is so much involved with sales funnels, but the basic premise is that your visitors will show up to your site by discovering your content, drop into your sales funnel through an offer via your lead magnet or some other tripwire, and they'll then be led through a journey with drip-fed messages at some periodic schedule that will allow you to sell your products and services on autopilot.

Im currently interested on starting a blog and Im wondering if it is possible to blog on a smartphone? Since I cant always carry a laptop around and most of the time ideas and inspirations just pop-up from unexpected places and I dont want to waste the feelings and emotions that I wanted to express on my writings just because I cant conveniently start from where I am

The tools you use to reach people constantly change and you always have new options – more than you can handle. If however you understand the fundamentals, you realize that your core values stay consistent. How you present your value and what distribution formats you use to deliver it to people, fluctuates based on what is working best at any given time.
i know that blogging is a super duper work but getting success in it is too difficult and in it i am struggling 1.5 year and i am get only 16.2 $ during 1.5 year . now i am too upset in blogging but after seeing other bloggers i am continued my journey in blogging . and now after seeing many article just like your i made idea for making a blog on wordpress
You’ve given me some interesting things to think about, and no mistake. At the moment, video plays a supporting role and audio none at all, so I guess I’m going to have to consider repackaging new posts to these delivery methods. It was something that hadn’t occurred to me at all until I found this post. My main problem is that I have a face that is good for radio, a voice best suited to silence and a budget that won’t allow me to remedy either one. However, I guess with practice the voice will improve and the face can be replaced by graphics {grin}.
Oh, and side note—once you've started generating a decent amount of traffic to your blog, it'll be a smart long-term decision to move up your hosting plan to a managed WordPress hosting provider like Kinsta that have even more features (which is what I use now that I'm in the hundreds of thousands of monthly readers), especially when you're in need of speeding up your WordPress blog.
Bluehost will ask if you want to purchase a ton of add-ons to your package. We don’t think any of these are absolutely necessary, but you might want to consider privacy protection. It’s less than $1 a month, and it’ll keep your contact information private. Note, though, savvy searchers will know how to check this information, and if it’s anonymous, it could hurt your credibility.
While our blog generates only a fraction of our total gross revenue, I am thankful to have opened up another income stream that I didn’t really understand even just two months ago. The best part about the blogging process so far is that it has generated opportunities for us to scale and grow our business that I had never considered when we first started.
I appreciate all the info you have here. I have had to retire from a 50 year career because of a health problem and I desperately need to find something to do at home to keep from losing my house. I have been looking at your site for months now, and just can’t find anything I would be interested in doing. I had a blog once before, years ago, and loved it, but never made any money from it as I didn’t understand how to. I have stayed away from the blogging idea because I know it takes a while to get going (making any money) and I need some NOW. But, after months of not finding anything else suitable, I have decided that if I don’t get started doing something, I’ll never get anywhere. After reading all of your info here, and printing out all of the basics to get started, it’s a little daunting! There’s so much more to it than I thought. I think I know what topic, niche, to use and want to start with affiliate marketing, but there is SO much to know and get it started! I hope I am able to get this all figured out! One thing you suggested is to connect with other bloggers to get tips on how to do things. How do you do that? Where do you find them?
On the other hand, with a self-hosted blog on your own domain name – you are the REAL owner of your blog. You’ll be able to name your blog whatever you want, for example, “YourName.com” or “YourAwesomeBlog.com. You can end it with .com, .co.uk, .net, .org, or virtually any other web suffix. Add to that unlimited bandwidth for videos, images, and content plus the free themes and you have a winning combo.
So now you have 15 reasons why you should start a blog, and we’ve shown you how to start a blog, step-by-step, based on our personal experience. But after giving you those detailed instructions, which could save you hundreds of hours of wasted time, we also want to give you some good reasons why you should not start a blog. (Keep in mind that these reasons are just our opinions, and we do not pretend to offer them up as a collection of empirical blogging maxims.)
Understand the difference between total revenue and net income. Most income reports tout total revenue. Net income or profit (what really matters) is often buried in the post. I came across an income report recently with a super impressive number in the title (and Pinterest image). It was total revenue. Not until I read the whole post did I learn this blogger spent well over half their total revenue on Facebook Ads alone. On top of that, they had an extensive list of expenses. By the end of the post I realized I had netted more than they did the previous month.
Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission. Know that I only recommend products, tools, services and learning resources I’ve personally used and believe are genuinely helpful, not because of the small commissions I make if you decide to purchase them. Most of all, I would never advocate for buying something that you can’t afford or that you’re not yet ready to implement.